Time to think about Spring subjects

By Rex Dolby

As cold and snowy as it’s been, I find it hard to believe that spring is here. My snow blower and shovels are still at the ready even though the robins, flowers pushing through the ground, and my wife suggest that may be it is time to put them away.

Spring is a great time to look for new shoots and wild flowers.  You will be need a macro and telephoto lens.  Since many people shoot from a standing position, they never observe the details that are hiding in plain sight.  Using the macro lens, or that camera feature, you will be able to reveal the details on the inside of a blossom so often missed. 
   A polarizing filter can provide some greater color saturation for the blossoms.  Care must be taken, however, to see that the filter does not cut off and round the corners of the viewfinder.  This rounded effect is called vignetting and is often used in portrait work.

Sweeping fields of wild flowers provide some great pictures, but don’t over look clusters of blossoms that are impressive in themselves.  Here’s where the telephoto lens will be helpful.  It will allow you to isolate those clusters because of its shallow depth of field. Objects in front and behind the cluster will not be in sharp focus, but that cluster you want will be.

Although a bright sun may show off some blossoms, it also provides some very dark shadows.  This contrast may be too much for the camera to calculate the right exposure, depending on how you set it.  Possibly a better shooting condition would be on a cloudy-bright day.  There will be some shadow and some brighter areas.  In either case, bracketing (multiple shots of different exposure settings) may be the way to go.  Good luck!